France's Spaced-Out Electoral Debate

Here is a well-meant word of advice for France's presidential hopefuls: kindly return from whatever planet you are on as soon as possible. France needs you to lead an honest debate on the challenges facing the nation.

Some rather serious things are wrong with France today: it has one of the highest unemployment rates in Western Europe, the government's finances are overstrained, the country's international competitiveness [an error occurred while processing this directive] is waning, and there's a deeply felt public malaise that is reflected in the bad poll numbers of political leaders, as well as in the sales of pessimistic books...